About a chocolate – “How to Handling and history”

 

 

A Little Background

Tempering is the process by which chocolate (couverture), when cool and solid after melting, becomes glossy, shiny and has that

certain crispness that cracks, even at room temperature. This technique is mainly used when producing chocolate decorations,

pralines and coatings. When chocolate is melted, the cocoa butter (the fat content of the chocolate) forms crystals and tempering

ensures that these crystals are stabilized and evenly applied throughout the chocolate. Most of the chocolate when bought

commercially is tempered. Once melted however it will loose this and needs to be tempered again. If one simply melts chocolate and

pours it in a mold, the chocolate will be greyish, matt and sometimes even has a sort of powdery finish.

 

This is called “bloom”.

The taste generally stays the same, but the appearance looks

inferior.

Chocolate  (History)

The cacao or cocoa tree is native to South America where it has be cultivated since the 7th century by the Aztecs, Mayans and

Incas. They brewed a drink from the cocoa beans (please see picture) which was very heavy, lighlty alcoholic and “made people

happy”.

The first Europeans to come in contact with the cocoa bean were those on Columbus’s fourth voyage in 1502. Columbus

returned to Spain with a collection of treasures from the New World, among which were some dark brown beans, but no one,

knew what to do with them. It wasn’t until twenty years later, when the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortez arrived in Mexico,

that the pleasures to be derived from the beans were discovered.

The enterprising Cortez brought the cocoa beans with him back to Europe when he returned to Spain (this time taking the

method of preparing them as well). On his trip home, he planted some of the beans in Africa and hence the cultivation of the

cocoa beans in Africa until today.

 

 

The Spanish King and his court were enchanted by this new dark, rich drink, having sweetened it with sugar and flavored it with

vanilla and cinnamon. They fiercley guarded the secret preperation and recipe for over a hundred years.

In 1606, the secret leaked out when Antonio Carletti took the recipes to Italy. From that point on, the pleasures of drinking

chocolate spread quickly across Europe. The chocolate drink that enjoyed such popularity then, was made from a crumbly

coarse paste that had a high fat content.

Two centuries later, in 1828, a Dutchman named “Van Houten” invented a press to extract the fat or cocoa butter from the beans,

leaving behind a powder that could be dissolved in water to make a chocolate drink. Born was the chocolate drink we drink until

today and the cocoa powder used in many desserts and pastries.

Later in 1847, the English firm, Fry & Sons, added sugar and chocolate liquor to the cocoa butter to produce the first eating

chocolate.

In the early days, all eating chocolate was plain, with a rough, gracing texture. The first milk chocolate was made in Switzerland

in 1876, and the Swiss continued to improve their recipe until it became the smooth mouth-melting chocolate we know today.